Patriotism is an Aristotelian mean between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, a Burkean political loyalty to one’s people, region, and heritage. American patriotism is fealty to the constitutional tradition, crucially including didactic reasoning (i.e., questioning) and thus habit of reference. In the Federalist Papers #1, Hamilton contended a people could establish good government by choice: this is the core of American exceptionalism, of Americans being ‘creedal’. Lincoln, commenting on the Dred Scott decision, saw the Framers as having declared the right of equality just so that imperfect application could progress as quickly as possible to the goal.

Aristotle thought that without understanding the purpose of a regime, there was no basis of criticism. The ancients viewed patriotism as individual submission to the polis; Rousseau favored Sparta as an exemplar of the general will, but Montesquieu rejected this as deficient in humanity while Smith thought political leaders ought to express benevolence for the community. Thence to the Federalists, who viewed the Constitution as reflecting popular pursuit of liberties but enshrined republican government to stage off the excesses of the mob. Smith contends patriotism is best expressed by those capable of sympathizing with one’s fellow citizens. Nationalism is exclusionary, ultimately a struggle of interests; cosmopolitanism is rootless, stateless, relativist – incapable to sympathy or loyalty.

Considering the ends of politics, Max Weber distinguished between an ethic of responsibility, characterized by prudence, the view that ends do not justify the means, that politicians are responsible for outcomes; and an ethic of absolute ends, evaluated by intentions not results. The cosmopolitan, in its contemporary American guise of the progressive, exemplifies the latter. Cosmopolitanism seeks to evade the past and lacks a view of virtue grounded in experience. In this respect, the postmodern (to use another label) ironically recalls Marx, another mystic cosmopolitan who ironically insisted that history is the final arbiter of intentions.

Smith is harder on Trump and nationalism, or populism. Well argued until the end, the book’s concluding chapter feels trite.